Emanuela Duca – Artist, Designer and Incubator

21
December2012

By Jaime Lin Weinstein

The second class of the CFDA’s Fashion Incubator program left its communal space on West 38th
street in New York City and came to Atlanta last week, the first stop
on an around-the-world type tour to meet retailers, customers and media
in local markets thanks to a new partnership with W Hotels. One of the
four program participants to come to Atlanta was Italian jewelry
designer Emanuela Duca, a woman who is familiar with travelling in order
to further her career – fifteen years ago she decided to take a big
risk and relocated from her hometown of Rome to New York City in order
to place herself in a market more welcoming to new, contemporary
designers.

Her Italian heritage, however, remains a driving force in her work.
The pieces of her current collection take inspiration from the textured
surfaces and raw, primitive aesthetic of the ancient ruins in her native
land. Constructed of sterling silver and treated through processes like
oxidation to produce a black finishing, Duca has mastered her
techniques and her aesthetic through many years of experimentation.
“It’s a funny thing, but you get to know when a piece is finished,” she
explains. “In shapes, dimensionality, in surface, all the elements have
to come together to have a nice balance, so you know when you have
achieved that balance, it is finished.”

Describing her process in the same way you might imagine a sculptor
describe molding a piece of art, you can tell that Duca truly is an
artist. It was, in fact, while pursuing an art degree from the School of
Art in Rome and the European Institute of Design that she found her
artistic calling in jewelry design. After moving to the states and
starting her own line in 2005, Duca is now embracing the advice of her
mentors in the CFDA program to grow her business and expand her audience
including exploring the idea of a fashion jewelry collection that is
set to come out at the beginning of next year. Emanuela’s own advice to
aspiring, young designers: “Take the courage to take a risk.” Her own
biggest risk was moving from Rome to New York City. It certainly has
paid off.